\ 

 CA^-LYLE. 99 



and will not learn the lesson we have taken such pains in 

 expounding for the fiftieth time. Well, then, if eloquence, if 

 example, if the awful warning of other little boys who neg 

 lected their accidence and catne to the gallows, if none of 

 these avail, the birch at leasnis left, and we will try that. 

 The dominie spirit has become every year more obtrusive 

 and intolerant in Mr. Carlyle s Writing, and the rod, instead 

 of being kept in its place as a resource for desperate cases, 

 has become the alpha an$ omega of all successful training, 

 the one divinely- appointed means of human enlightenment 

 and progress in short, the final hope of that absurd animal 

 who fancies himself a little lower than the angels. Have we 

 feebly taken it for granted that the distinction of man was 

 reason ? Never was there a more fatal misconception. It is 

 in the gift of unreason that we are unenviably distinguished 

 from the brutes, whose, nobler privilege of instinct saves them 

 from our blunders and our crimes. 



But since Mr. Carlyle has become possessed with the hal 

 lucination that he is head-master of this huge boys school 

 which we call the world, his pedagogic birch has grown to 

 the taller proportions and more ominous aspect of a gallows. 

 His article on Dr. Francia was a panegyric of the halter, in 

 which the gratitude of mankind is invoked for the self-ap 

 pointed dictator who had discovered in Paraguay a tree more 

 beneficent than that which produced the Jesuits bark. Mr. 

 Carlyle seems to be in the condition of a man who uses sti 

 mulants, and must increase his dose from day to day as the 

 senses become dulled under the. spur. He began by admiring 

 strength of character and purpose, and the manly self-denial 

 which makes a humble fortune great by steadfast loyalty to 

 duty. He has gone on till mere strength has become such 

 washy weakness that there is no longer any titillation in it; 

 and nothing short of downright violence will rouse his nerves 

 now to the needed excitement. At first he made out very 

 well with remarkable men ; then, lessening the water and in 

 creasing the spirit, he took to Heroes; and now he must 

 have downright ///humanity, or the draught has no savour; 

 so he gets on at last to Kings, types of remorseless Force, 

 who maintain the political views of Berserkers by the legal 

 principles of Lynch. Constitutional monarchy is a failure, 

 representative government is a gabble, democracy a birth of 

 the bottomless pit; there is no hope for mankind except in 

 H 2 



